by S. Cushaway
Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Thirty-four . . .
“Leigh?”
Kaitar.
He came from the shadows, a monster haunting a nightmare she could not wake from. Feeling as though she were watching everything from someplace far off and very cold, Leigh raised the pistol.
He stopped an arm’s length from her and raised his hands. They were empty; the yatreg were sheathed at his belt. “Are you going to kill me?”
“No.” Her hands shook as she lowered the gun. “No, I’m not going to kill you.” The floating, faraway sensation drained until she was whole again. Solid. “How did you get loose from the ropes?”
“Worm Glass,” he replied, shifting his gaze as he lowered himself to the ground. “Before they dragged me from the wagon, I used that bit sticking out of the crate to cut through most of the rope at my ankle. I kicked free and ran. Got my yatreg.”
“But how did you—”
“Luck, Leigh. I just got lucky they didn’t see me, that’s all.” He still wouldn’t meet her eye. “We need to get out of here.”
“Felix?” Leigh asked, suddenly remembering the pop-eyed bandit.
“I saw him running south down the gully. He’s unarmed, and it’s dark. I doubt he’ll try to come back, not after being chased off by Strauss and then the threk.”
“Will the threk come back?”
Kaitar shook his head. “No. Not for a while. They’re spooked. The Firebrand set them off. They attacked first because they were hunting and hungry, but they got Strauss because they were scared.”
“But you had the Firebrand.” A dull, awful throb lanced its way through Leigh's temples, and the back of her eyes ached. She thought she might be crying, but when she rubbed her cheeks, they were dry. “Why didn’t they go after you?”
“Later. Not now, Leigh. I’m tired and I hurt all over. Here.” He unsheathed a yatreg.
She stiffened. “What—”
“Your ankles are still tied. Stretch your legs out. I’ll cut the rope.
It hurt to move, and her chest felt as though it might cave in. Kaitar leaned forward and with a single, quick motion, slid the blade between her ankles, and cut the rope.
“You hurt bad?” he asked.
“Broken rib. I thought it may have hit my lung, but I’m not coughing blood and I can breathe steadily.”
He jerked his chin toward the rover. “I’ll drive tonight. Just tell me how. You can drive tomorrow, if your rib isn’t hurting too much.”
“Yes, I’ll show you.” The rib would be hurting too much to drive tomorrow, but that didn’t matter. “We . . .we need to clean the back out first.” Leigh rubbed the raw, scraped skin where the rope had cut into her. “Can we do that? Can we . . .” She couldn’t pry the rest of it off her tongue.
The scout didn’t speak as he turned his face toward the sky. There, more vast than even the Shy’war-Anquai itself, the endless stretch of night blazed with countless stars. Leigh found herself staring at them, too, and a sadness more profound than ever she’d known pressed down on her. Those stars seemed too cold to find any comfort from. Too remote. The silver, pitiless eyes of some great, black monster that observed everything and felt nothing at all.
“Let’s say our goodbyes and dump that fucking Worm Glass. Neiro's not getting any of it,” Kaitar said. “Strauss took your yalei. It’s in the front seat of the rover. They had Romano’s jacket up there, too. I saw it when I grabbed my yatreg.” He stood. “Orin will want to know what happened.”
“Yes, he’ll want to know what happened.” Leigh looked up at the stars again. Empty.
The Sweats
Rivers flowed over the hills of Gairy’s brow, down the lines of his prominent nose, and through the dark tangle of mustache and beard. It leaked onto his lips, tasting of dust and salt. A tremble ran up his thick legs, roving around his belly, deep as coming thunder. It rushed up through his chest until the muscles convulsed and his heart beat too fast. Dizziness followed. His clothes, drenched and stained, felt as heavy as a lead sheet against his skin. His tongue peeked between his cracked lips to taste the sweat. Every time he swallowed, the thirst raged back at him, and it had a voice, feverishly greedy.
“That’s not what we want, is it? That’s drizzle. That’s just water. What good can water do us?”
I’m dyin’. Hurts bad.
The thirst laughed, just as Evrik Niles had laughed.
Gairy’s fingers slid into his duster pocket. There, seductive and smooth, the glass bottle waited. And inside that glass bottle there was golden, beautiful Saltang. But a pale, poison death floated there, too. One big swallow and his brain would spark up, flare to madness, and then go blank. Forever.
He peeked down at the bottle, shadowed in thick folds of leather. It shone back up at him, winking. Smiling. More stinging sweat ran into his eyes. He wiped it away and licked his lips.
“Gairy, it’s getting dark.”
One drink and it’s over. Peace. Better than drowning like the old man did. And Ma . . . Ma on her birthing bed, soaked in blood.
“Gairy.” Senqua’s spoke again, more insistent and closer than before. “We need to move away from here. There are threk all around Pointe Rock. You know that. We should—”
“Shut up. Let me be.” His body twitched under his heavy coat like a thousand fleas had taken to his skin.
One drink. And it’s over.
A slim hand came to rest on his shoulder, squeezing. “We have to move. We need water, and you’re sick.”
“Go away, I said. Leave me here, Senqua. Let me have one minute of peace before—”
“You selfish, cowardly son of a bitch, Gairy Reidur!” A fist slammed at his back. He turned to look at her; Senqua’s coppery face had gone pale with anger, but her eyes were bright and alert, the same color as the sunset behind them. Fearless.
“If you feel guilty and ashamed, you deserve it! But we can’t sit here while you mope and the threk track us down. Or Scrappers might find us, or we might die of thirst. All we have is a little water left in the canteen on my belt. That’s it!” She thumped the canteen with a palm. “You’re shivering and soaked in sweat. You need help.”
Gairy turned away from that too-intense stare. “We could both just have a drink. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about water, or Scrappers, or the damned threk either.”
She hit him; his head rocked to the side. Stunned, he touched his aching jaw.
“You can drink it if you’re such a coward, but I’m not going to. The old Sun Plaza isn’t far from here. A few miles north.” Senqua lowered her voice, as if trying to convince herself. “We can make it that far. I’ll think of what to do there.”
“Hell.” Gairy rubbed his bruised cheek and swallowed against the dryness in his throat. A lump of guilt hung there, hard and unyielding. Another wave of shaking and sweating overtook him, making his vision blur and his chest squeeze tight. Pain drummed his head until he thought his skull might shatter into a thousand pieces, and his heart hammered, driving an ache all the way up his spine. He gritted his teeth and doubled over, wanting to puke—but there was nothing to puke up.
“Here . . . here . . . !”
The thirst laughed at him, drowning Senqua’s voice with its mocking. “Drink it, you worthless goat! Drink it and be done with it! Drink. It.”
A canteen pushed against his mouth. Gairy swallowed automatically, choking on the water as his throat seized up. He toppled into the sand, wheezing. “Just kill me. Open that bottle, Senqua. Pour it down my throat . . .” The words died away as his body convulsed.
“Drink the water,” she demanded, holding the canteen to his lips again. “Damn you, Gairy! Why did you do it? Why did you take their damned whiskey and sell out? Why did you ever start in the first place?”
The water slid down his throat as his stomach clenched, rising up. Gairy clamped his teeth together and swallowed it down again. The shaking subsided, but his entire body—once strong and hale and now just a mass of sweating fat�
�felt weak as a limp rag. He sucked in a gulp of air, then exhaled through his nose.
Senqua capped the canteen. “They’re going to go to Dogton. My father’s there. He’s old now. And he’s alone—”
“Shut up, Senqua. Leave me alone. Go away. Let me die here.” Squeezing his eyes shut, he waited for her to follow that demand. Just stand up and walk off. After she’d gone, he would take a long drink of the Nith’ath-tainted whiskey and his shame would drown forever.
Just like the old man. Is that why he did it? Did he drown on purpose that night? Saw what he’d turned into, looked at that reflection, and knew it was over. No good.
“No. You’re going to live through this. You don’t deserve an easy way out. Even if I have to sneak all the way to the Old Tree Well in the dead of night and steal water to bring back. And if my father dies or gets hurt . . .”
“You can’t go back to the well. They’ll leave a man there to guard it, or will send someone back there soon.”
“Scrappers can’t see in the dark. I can.”
Without opening his eyes, Gairy grunted. “You know the way to the Sun Plaza. Go there. The hand pumps might even still be hooked up to that well, I don’t know. Heard it went dry, but I never checked.” A bone-deep weariness overtook him. Behind his eyelids, the bright sunset pressed hard, tinting the blackness orange and red.
Crows and vultures will come pick at me. Be some use to them, maybe. Not such a bad place to go. Better than a horse trough.
Something bumped against his pocket and he heard the slosh of liquid against glass. His eyes shot open, bleary, but not so fogged he couldn’t make out Senqua darting away. The bottle of Saltang flashed and winked against her hand.
“No. No! You bring that back here, Senqua. Bring it back!” Gairy lurched to his feet. “You, Shyiine devil, bring that back here!”
“No! You’re not using this as your way out!”
“Damn it woman, I’ll let you pour it down my gullet! Take your revenge. Get back at me for what I did, just bring it back!” Dizzily, he stumbled after her, plodding, slow, the dust rising up with each heavy footstep. She moved so quickly it was hard to follow her path.
“Senqua!”
His thunderings and rantings went unheeded. Forcing his legs to move faster, Gairy jogged along, lungs heaving, heart pounding too loudly.
“Need a drink. Damn you, I need a drink! I’m going to snap your neck, Senqua!”
Twenty yards ahead, he saw her stumble, her ankle twisted on loose sand. She went down in a little heap of red yalei and long black hair, clutching the bottle to her chest, a strangled yelp breaking from between her lips.
“Senqua . . . give it back.” Gairy planted his big hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Leaning over only made the dizziness worse. The ground spun round and round beneath his boots.
“No! I’ll break it against the rock if you try to take it from me. I’ll smash it. I don’t care if the glass cuts me.” Curling into a ball, Senqua tucked the bottle under herself.
He took a deep breath. “Heh. If it cuts you in the wrong place, you’ll bleed out. Die.”
“Maybe,” she replied, still curled tightly around the whiskey bottle. “But unless we find water, I’ll die anyway. It might take a long time for it to happen, but it will still happen.”
“You should have stayed in the shack. I told you to.” Shame poked him, sliding a thick finger up his throat and pressing against the thirst, momentarily hushing it. “It’s your fault you got shot,” he went on, desperate to convince himself of the lie. “Arrogant, stupid Shyiine. Always making trouble. They might not even have chased me off if you hadn’t come out and caused trouble.”
Senqua slithered away from him like a little snake. “The whiskey made you do all this. You were never like this before. I remember who you were. Druen. Your name—”
“I’m not a filthy Druen! I’m Estarian! My mama was Estarian.”
“Your father was Druen!” She scooped up a handful of sand and hurled it. It smacked him in the face, the tiny grains stinging his eyes. Snarling, he lunged for her, but the ground caught him hard and knocked the air from his lungs.
“And you. . .” Senqua went on, pitiless to his suffering and shame. “Sold out because you’re a drunk. My father might be hurt, and I’ll be out here. Dead.”
“You won’t die. You only twisted your ankle. You didn’t break a leg. I get my hands on you, though, I’ll wring your neck.”
“I’m going to the Sun Plaza to see if the well isn’t dry. Then, I’m going to Dogton.”
“You can’t go to Dogton. Didn’t you hear them? They’re going to Dogton . . . Karraetu and the entire Scrapper fleet from Os’tizal, Evrik Niles . . . Brynn Aurlin . . .” He straightened, but the darkening horizon whirled and tilted.
“I heard,” she said quietly. “But I can’t leave my father there, alone, can I? What do they want with Dogton, anyway?”
“Won’t you ever learn to shut up and just let it be?”
“Won’t you ever stop being a coward?”
“Take Dogton from Neiro. That’s what Niles wants. Karraetu wants Pirahj. You go there now, they’ll rape and kill you. They’re a rough bunch. I guess Printz didn’t realize how rough, but then again . . .” Gairy smirked, feeling mean and tired. “He’s got Shyiine blood, and you little bastards never have any common sense.”
“And you do, trusting men like that? Betraying everyone in Dogton?” Senqua spat at him. The moisture stuck to his grimy, dust-and-sweat-streaked face.
He wiped it away. “Give me the bottle, Senqua. I mean it.”
“No. You’ll have to kill me. Or I’ll kill you. You think I’m little and weak, but you wouldn’t be the first man I’ve fought off.” Wincing, she rose and took a step backward. “It’s almost dark. I’m going to hide where you can’t see me, but I’ll be close. I’ll make sure any threk don’t get you, but you will not have this bottle. Tomorrow, we’re going to the Sun Plaza.”
“Give it here!”
She shook her head, smiling sadly as she took another step into the lengthening shadows. The sunset—now only a thin, orange line in the west—faded rapidly as darkness pressed down from the lid of the sky.
“I deserve to die, Senqua,” he pleaded. “Give me the bottle. Go save yourself. Damned Shyiine snake, you always find a way to make it. Kaitar does. Every time, the son of a bitch.”
“He might be dead this time. Why do you hate us so much, Gairy? My father always says Druen were trustworthy allies.”
“Fuck what your old man says. Give me that whiskey!”
“No.”
He roared wordlessly and he lunged at her. Senqua darted off into the gloom, too quick for him to catch despite the sprained ankle. The pretty red yalei was the last thing he saw before she faded into the indigo shadows.
“Senqua!”
Her voice drifted back as the last light went from the sky, “I’ll be close, Gairy!”
Gairy slowed, peering into the night. Nothing out there moved. After a while, he sat in the dust and buried his face in his hands, head heavy as a gravestone. The sweat began to pour again, making cold, sticky rivers run down his back and face. She had gone and left him, but even so, he was not alone.
“Just one drink is all it would take. Go on, you old billy goat. Just one more, like your old man.”
Thirst kept him company all night long.
Static
Neiro watched the last of the unarmed townies file into the Dust Bin. A few of them had volunteered to take up their guns and stand alongside the Enforcers and N’jian Printz. The commander’s three Scrapper escorts had been disarmed and put in the cantina with the others; Mal-eyio hadn’t been able to positively identify them as trustworthy.
“The coup happened as soon as you left for Dogton,” Mal-eyio had told Printz. “Inside job, Commander. I don’t know who or how, or why . . . but Karraetu didn’t act alone. He’s been planning this, with help, for a long time.”
And
I wouldn’t doubt Avaeliis had something to do with it, somewhere down the wire.
The Bin door slapped closed.
Every merchant stall stood abandoned, the weapon racks empty, the cells gone, everything piled into the barracks. The town should have been busy with people collecting the last of the harvest. Just a day before, everyone had been out, trading their water and cells for what little luxuries they could afford, readying themselves for the harvest-time celebrations, listening to Harper Moad’s holy blather as they went about their business. Now, Dogton stood silent, with only the wind walking the street and kicking up swirls of dust.
Neiro glanced to his right. Mal-eyio stood next to N’jian Printz, his expression stony as he shifted his weight from his bandaged leg. Printz showed even less emotion than Mal-eyio as he watched the front gates, waiting for Eli Vorensi. The sharpshooter perched atop the barrier on an old scaffolding, prepared to give the signal Scrappers were bearing close to Dogton.
Neiro’s gaze shifted down the road, following the line of packed grit. Orin and his other Enforcers stood ready. The captain’s white hair—gone ochre with the dust—drifted across his careworn face. His pale eyes drew into a squint against the afternoon glare.
An old gunslinger, a boy who can’t stop grinning, a slave missing half a hand and most of his sanity, a tattooed pig, and a crack-shot queer. My Enforcers.
Neiro wasn’t sure if he should laugh at that irony or marvel at life’s cruelty.
Music blared over the quiet town, crackling and static-ridden. He recognized it as an Avaeliisian march, hundreds of years old, coming from the roof of the tall warehouse. There, lying on his paunchy stomach, Hubert Undersaw waited with his ancient Pumer rifle and a small radio that was almost as old as the gun.
And then there’s that old idiot, acting like this is a damned carnival. Like he’s about to go out on some trophy hunt for the Sulari princes.
The music set his teeth on edge. It reminded him too much of home, of his mother and father, and how they’d played those grand old marches on their piano.
